A Conference at Rutgers University, Alexander Library, April 20 and 21, 2012
"Libel: Discourses and Practices in Early Modern Britain and Europe,
c.1500-1800”“Though some make slight of libels, yet you may see by them how
the
wind sits….More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well,
as
ballads and libels” (John Selden).
Over the past twenty years, historians and critics have found ever more
sophisticated ways to use early modern libels—what they said, how they said
it,
to whom and under what conditions—to reveal “the complexion of the
times”. This
interdisciplinary conference builds upon two decades of pioneering work on
early
modern libel to open new areas of study and to connect hitherto disconnected
fields and approaches. It explores the interrelationship of visual and textual
libel; the nature of libel as legal category, politico-religious discourse,
literary form and underground communication in different confessional and
national contexts; the transnational circulation of libelous texts and rumors;
and the shifting meanings and uses of libel over more than two centuries of
often turbulent political and cultural change.
See:
http://britishstudies.rutgers.edu/events/2011-2012/conferences/details/72-conference-early-modern-libel